As written about in today’s New York TimesGoodReads (which has come a bit of an obsession of mine) has just launched a new site called DiscoverReads that uses an algorithm to recommend books. (Book recommendations and how people choose what to read is another obsession of mine, so this announcement is like a double whammy of awesome.)

From the Times:

On Thursday, Goodreads will announce that it has acquired another start-up, Discovereads.com. It uses machine learning algorithms to analyze which books people might like, based on books they’ve liked in the past and books that people with similar tastes have liked.

Otis Chandler, Goodreads’s founder and chief executive, says the site has been an online version of walking into a friend’s living room and scanning the bookshelves to get recommendations. But readers need more than that, he said, particularly now that libraries, bookstores and some newspapers’ book review sections are disappearing and e-bookstores are inspiring more self-published authors.

“This will give the casual reader a quick answer to ‘What should I read first?’” he said. Once people have rated 10 books on a scale of five stars, Goodreads will be able to suggest books they might like.

All I want to do is try this out, but fucking hell, the site “isn’t accepting new members at this time.” OK, screw it: back to watching the Big East Tournament. Thanks for nothing GoodReads + NY Times. Teases!

But while it’s a commercial break I’m here, this does remind me of Quim Monzo’s short story “Books,” which is included in our forthcoming collection Guadalajara. (Which, if you want to buy it—and you should! it’s brilliant—you’ll have to do it at an indie bookstore or online, since B&N isn’t going to be stocking it . . . No, not bitter at all about yesterday’s sales call at B&N. Not a bit.)

Anyway, you can read the entirely of “Books” in PDF format by clicking here, and here’s a longish excerpt from the beginning of the story (translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush):

There are four books on the passionate reader’s table. All waiting to be read. He went to the bookshop this afternoon, and after spending an hour around the new releases tables and reviewing the covers of his favorite authors on the shelves, he chose four. One is a book of short stories by a French writer; he really enjoyed a novel of his years ago. He didn’t like the second novel he published that much (in fact, didn’t like it all) and has now bought this book of stories in the hope of re-discovering what had fired his imagination so many years ago. The second book is a novel by a Dutch writer whose two preceding novels he had tried to read, but with little success, because he’d had to put both of them down after a few lines. Strangely, this didn’t lead him to abandon the idea of a fresh attempt. Strangely, because usually, when he can’t stand twenty lines of the first book by a particular writer, he might try the second but never the third, unless the critics he trusts have singled it out for special praise, or a friend has recommended it particularly enthusiastically. But this wasn’t the case now. Why did he decide to give him another try? Perhaps it’s the beginning. The beginning that goes: “The bellhop rushed in shouting: “Mr. Kington! Mr. Kington, please!” Mr. Kington was reading the newspaper in the lobby of the Ambassade Hotel and was about to raise his hand when he realized that nobody, but nobody, knew he was there. He didn’t even look up when the bellhop walked by. It would be the most intelligent decision he had ever taken.”

The third book is also a novel, the first novel by an American author he has never heard of. He bought it because in spite of the initial quotation (“Oh, how the tiles glinted in the blossoming dawn, when the roosters’ cry broke the silence with the sound . . .”) he had leafed through it and felt drawn in. The fourth book is a book of short stories, also by a Dutch writer, one who had been unpublished to that point. What attracted him to that book? If he were to be sincere, it was the rich abundance of initials: there are three (A., F., Th.) before the three words that make up the surname. A total of six words: three for the surname and three for the forename. What’s more, the first word of the surname is “van.” He simply adores surnames that begin with “van.”

Why, out of the four books that the passionate reader has on his table, are two (50% exactly) Dutch? Because the Book Fair held in the city was this year devoted to Dutch literature, and that meant, on the one hand, that publishers have brought out more writers in that language recently and, on the other, that the main bookshops in the city have created special displays, piling tables up with these new books as well as books by Dutch and Flemish authors that had been published years ago, that are no longer new and were gathering dust in the distributors’ warehouses.

The passionate reader has all four books in front of him and can’t think where to begin. The stories by the French writer whose novel he liked several years ago? The novel by the young American about whom he knows nothing? That way, if (as is very likely) he finds it immediately disappointing, he will have eliminated one of the four at a stroke and will only have to choose from among the other three. Obviously the same may happen with the novel by the Dutch writer whom he has had to put down on two previous occasions, after merely one page. The reader opens the second book and leafs through. He opens the third and does exactly the same. And follows suit with the fourth. He could choose on the basis of the typeface or kind of paper . . . He tries to find another aspect of the books that could decide for him (an isolated sentence, a character’s name). Page layout. Or paragraphing, for example. He knows that many writers struggle to create frequent paragraphs, whether the text calls for it or not, because they think that when the reader sees the page isn’t too dense, he will feel better disposed toward the book. The same goes for dialogue. A serrated text, with lots of dialogue, is (according to current norms) a plus for most people. This may generally be the case, but has the opposite effect on this reader: he finds an abundance of new paragraphs irritating. He is prejudiced against, and mirrors the prejudice felt by lovers of abundant paragraphs, who find a lack of paragraphs extremely monotonous or arrogant.

Where should he begin? The solution might be to begin them all at once, as he often does. Not simultaneously, of course: but going from one to another, just as you never watch six TV channels at the same time but flick from one to another.

Back when I was at Dalkey, we published a fantastic short story collection entitled Bad News of the Heart by Douglas Glover. The stories in there are touching, very funny, and incredibly well-crafted. Douglas went on to “win the Governor General’s Award“http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla/kf127248822388593750.htm for his novel Elle, and although we didn’t publish that novel, Dalkey did do his book on the Quixote, The Enamoured Knight. Douglas was great to work with, and you should definitely read his books.

We’ve been in touch off and on over the years, most recently concerning his new project, Numero Cinq, which started as “a reading, discussion and resource site for a small group of Douglas Glover‘s friends and Vermont College of Fine Arts writing students” and has grown into something much bigger.

Here’s a bit on the origin of the name:

The name for the blog comes from DG’s short story “The Obituary Writer” in which story the hero, based loosely on the author as a young newspaperman, harasses a distraught neighbour who lives in the apartment across the hall by making loud noises in the night and pretending to be a member of a sinister terrorist group called Numéro Cinq.

In addition to all that, recently Douglas ran “Gregor,” a short story by Quim Monzo appearing in the forthcoming Guadalajara. Also one of my favorites in the book. You can read the whole thing here, but here’s the opening:

When the beetle emerged from his larval state one morning, he found he had been transformed into a fat boy. He was lying on his back, which was surprisingly soft and vulnerable, and if he raised his head slightly, he could see his pale, swollen belly. His extremities had been drastically reduced in number, and the few he could feel (he counted four eventually) were painfully tender and fleshy and so thick and heavy he couldn’t possibly move them around.

What had happened? The room seemed really tiny and the smell much less mildewy than before. There were hooks on the wall to hang a broom and mop on. In one corner, two buckets. Along another wall, a shelf with sacks, boxes, pots, a vacuum cleaner, and, propped against that, the ironing board. How small all those things seemed now—he’d hardly been able to take them in at a glance before. He moved his head. He tried twisting to the right, but his gigantic body weighed too much and he couldn’t. He tried a second time, and a third. In the end he was so exhausted that he was forced to rest.

He opened his eyes again in dismay. What about his family? He twisted his head to the left and saw them, an unimaginable distance away, motionless, observing him, in horror and in fear. He was sorry they felt frightened: if at all possible, he would have apologized for the distress he was causing. Every fresh attempt he made to budge and move towards them was more grotesque. He found it particularly difficult to drag himself along on his back.

OK, so I didn’t get to writing up all the things I wanted to this week, but before taking off for Amsterdam and the Non-Fiction Conference (see next post), I thought I’d share our Summer 2011 catalog.

With a little luck, I’ll highlight each of these next week, with excerpts and the like, but for now, here’s a list of all five titles along with links to their Open Letter pages, where you can find cover images, jacket copy, links to excerpts, author bios, etc., etc.

Excellent collection of Monzo’s stories, and the second book of his that we’re publishing. Next up: 1000 Morons.

Sergio Chejfec’s My Two Worlds, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Carson, with an introduction by Enrique Vila-Matas

This is the first of three Chejfec titles we’re publishing, the other two being The Dark and The Planets. First came across Chejfec in a post by Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading linking to a recommendation at Hermano Cerdo written by Enrique Vila-Matas about how totally awesome this book is. (Or some similar Spanish phrasing.) We then went on to buy the rights to all three books thanks to a brilliant excerpt that was in BOMB magazine.

This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. And the second Open Letter book in which guinea pigs are subjected to uncool things. I get the strangest reaction from friends when I try and describe just how funny the narrator’s guinea pig “experiments” are. Like the one with the record player. Or the stove. Or the bathtub. . . . Um, yeah. But seriously, it’s hysterical—mainly because of the voice of the befuddled, clueless narrator. And we have some awesome promotions in mind for this . . . none of which involve the harming of physical, living guinea pigs. Promise.

This new collection by Can Xue (who has also been published by New Directions, Northwestern, Yale, and Conjunctions) is the first Chinese title to come out from Open Letter. She’s a very interesting, unique writer who reminds me a bit of Rikki Ducornet. The stories are a bit surreal, surprising, and, at time, disorienting in a very pleasurable way.

We published Winterbach’s To Hell with Cronje last fall to some good attention. She’s a stark, interesting South African writer, and in the end, I think Book of Happenstance is an even better book than Cronje . . .

As the Barcelona Book Fair ended this past Sunday, the bigger, better—and according to Jorge Volpi at El Pais—“paradise” that is the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) was just getting started on the other side of the globe.

A resident of Mexico City, Volpi writes a very funny article, focusing largely on how the rivalry between his native city and Guadalajara plays out during the fair. He humorously refers to himself as chilango, slang for a resident of Mexico City, and implies that his fellow chilangos will lynch him for writing this article. Making a compromise between his loyalties to Mexico City and the impressive literary culture of Guadalajara, he ends his article citing the power of FIL to illuminate books as the “unbeatable pretext for the reconciliation of these two cities”.

Volpi also compares the FIL to Frankfurt and it is certainly interesting to hear about Frankfurt from the perspective of a writer not publisher…

We writers have our inferno: The Frankfurt Book Fair. Few experiences are as anguishing as attending—in error—this gigantic labyrinth. Books in all languages, themes, colors, and sizes. To top it all off, miles of “professionals”, the ones really invited to the party: the editors, agents, publicists, and scouts. In Frankfurt, the readers are prohibited (they’re only allowed to look at the books from afar) and writers are the weirdos: sometimes the next Nobel winner attends, a recipient of the Bookseller’s Prize, the literary companion of this country—or culture—, the writers who are invited every year, and usually some absent-minded novelist or poet. For what? To suffer in front of what Gabriel Zaid calls too many books. Here literature is of less importance: what is important are the deals, the meetings every twenty minutes, and drinks at night. The best thing that authors and readers can do in Frankfurt is flee…

In comparison to the callous and cold German fair, Volpi paints Guadalajara like a beach party where editors, authors, and readers alike gather at the end of the fair to dance salsa together.

The FIL in Guadalajara is almost a paradise: an enormous but manageable space, well-ventilated, packed with readers and writers, even though it also has a growing number of professionals… This city in a few days convert itself into the center of the Spanish language (and a few others). And what’s more: a forum for intellectual discussion, an incentive for the critic, a showcase of thought, a refuge for the arts. I don’t say this so that the Guadalajarians will excuse me for being a chilango, but the FIL is an example for Mexico City and for all of the country.

And probably an example for Frankfurt as well. Here’s hoping for traditional German folkdance next year…

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Reviewed by P. T. Smith

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There are plenty of reasons you can fail to find the rhythm of a book. Sometimes it’s a matter of discarding initial assumptions or impressions, sometimes of resetting oneself. Zigmunds Skujiņš’s Flesh-Coloured Dominoes was a defining experience in the necessity. . .

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